The present invention relates to the packing of food chips as a stack in a cylindrical container.
Various techniques have been employed for stacking food chips or other disc-shaped food articles. In one system, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,084,783, flat cookies are moved downwardly over a rotating drum provided with a plurality of steps or ledges and are thereafter received on a projecting surface upon which the cookies are retained in a vertical orientation or on edge for subsequent packing. However, there is no disclosure of the packing technique or apparatus. Additional equipment is required to fill the stack of chips into a container.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,207,288 discloses a conveyor for stacking cookies which may be vibrated. At the end of the conveyor the chips are vertical or on edge. No packaging technique is set forth for the stacked cookies.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,609,939, chips are directed through a horizontal metering trough in which a predetermined number of chips are measured by a periodic cut-off metering stop. A sweep arm engages chips of the stack and pushes them into a horizontally disposed container.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,677,391, picker members engage chips under vacuum and space them on a conveyor. This individual handling of chips is a time consuming and expensive operation. Then, the chips are reoriented to a vertical position by differences in elevations of adjacent conveyors. After stacking as above, the chips are packed into a horizontal container.
U.S. Pat No. 3,786,617 relates to an apparatus for the stacking of disc-shaped articles such as biscuits. The discs are vertically stacked in a stacking tube by an unknown technique. Thereafter, stacks of discs are slid horizontally into the open side of a vertical container.